Friday, June 11, 2010

Basil condemns Health Minister's attack on doctors

By SAM BASIL

Bulolo MP

 

Health Minister Sasa Zibe and his other band of ministers in this current government are flying so high up for eight consecutive years now and their vision has been blurred whereby they cannot rationalise their thoughts with what the professionals in the field are saying.

A health professional like Dr Glen Mola knows what he is talking about because he and his other hard working doctors do have to put up with the hardship of delivering health service everyday and over the last 15 to 20 years they have switched to sacrificial mode because the general health system in this country has declined due to the complete negligence of the government.

Health indicators of Papua New Guinea alone should make any conscious government of the day really worried. 

The National Alliance-led Government should have identified the key problem areas of the health department by their second year in office (2003) and started strategising and implementing corrective short and long term measures and by 2008 several corrective measures should have been successfully achieved.

The health ministry just like other ministries and their departments in the NA Led Government have been chasing their own tails for eight years now with not much to show for.

Sadly many Ministers have already been hypnotised by the state enterprise minister’s LNG spell which they and their speech writers have systematically incorporated the LNG ‘don’t worry be happy’ syndrome into all their presentations while they forget to remind themselves about the real issues.

They think the proceeds from the LNG will automatically fix all of the country’s problems but failed to realise the management crisis which they have created themselves.

Personally attacking Dr Glen Mola of his retirement and exiting to the good health overseas (Post-Courier Thursday June 10, 2010) is just too childish for the minister to bring his argument so low personalising individuals.

 I think we the members of parliament should sponsor a bill to stop all parliamentarians accessing health facilities overseas and start using our own facilities in Papua New Guinea.

By doing that the parliamentarians can really feel the pain and sufferings of the silent majority including the overworked and exposed health workers.

The administration of the health sector at the top is very poor.

 It clearly reflects the situation on the ground, which frankly speaking, is sub-standard and in dire need for funding to buy much needed drugs, run training programs for the lowest level of health workers (community health workers, aid post orderly, village birth attendants, etc).

A constant annual funding to sustain all health installations around the country must be the priority of any government.

Budget cuts must not affect any health budget of any government and it must do everything it can to provide a sustainable health programme for its citizens and it means borrowing funds to sustain health programmes.

 This government has heavily diverted funds to the non-core functions and as such billions of kina has been parked into trust accounts slowly leaking away driving the corruption scale needle pointing every year to unprecedented levels.

The minister’s arrogant and irrational approach to still establish a K500m facility in Port Moresby can only create a lot suspicions and questions about his credibility as a respected leader because spending K500m on a single project alone while overlooking the rundown state of the nationwide general health system is highly questionable.

 The government and its ministers must understand that their position is so powerful that whatever decision they make can affect a lot of people for a long time with long-lasting recovery effects therefore all thinking citizens have the right to question their leaders if  they think their leaders have gone insane or  losing their state of rationale  mind.

The health minister has clearly displayed those symptoms and has rejected outright the medication advice as prescribed by Dr Glen Mola which has attracted my attention to join this debate

 

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